America began to fall apart when Fox and other right wing “news” organs found out that there was big money to be made pandering to the nation’s dark side. Before these privateers commenced throwing rocks at America’s better angels for bucks there was a somewhat rational, national consensus. The bad guys were fragmented among the various parties so their power to make mischief was safely diluted.

At first the shit stirrers of Fox & Co. feed an unholy alliance among a dog whistling GOP and the nation’s crazies, but now under Trump the crazies have become a party power unto themselves, a conspiracy wonderland never again to be denied, a celebration of whatever batshit notion happens to be the talking point of the moment.

So, yes, there is no purple in politics anymore, and no way that purple can ever be revived. You’re either part of the constructive good or you’re part of the chaotic, destructive evil. Like Humpty Dumpty, a rational consensus can never be reassembled. And luckily for the Donald, it is far easier to unleash a destructive bad than produce a constructive good.